The Witcher -- violence, sex, and alchemy as part of your daily balanced breakfast

once you have a few hero cards in your deck does gwent just become easy mode? or does it get more challenging

Oh by the way the Witcher 2 is free on xbox 360 at the moment, I won't link to it because it's different for different regions but it's searchable at xbox.com. Also playable on Xbox One via back compatibility. You'll need to grab it soon though, think it expires in a few days.

gwent tends to become more strategic once you have a few good cards unless you're playing the local inkeep or nonquest types in which case then, yes, very much easy mode.

I SIGNED UP FOR A GWENT TOURNAMENT NOT FISTS OF FURY AGHHHHHHHHG

one minor gripe would be that the story gets kinda tedious and overbearing somewhere from bloody baron to the novigrad and the missions finding dandelion. like some really long cut scenes and i was starting to feel like skipping them. i'm not sure finding ciri is that interesting a storyline.

how completist are you all being? i've done big clusters of question marks in some areas, but this game seems to be just vast - and like if i'm in the city where the missions advance the main quest, i'm more likely to keep pressing on with that.

have to say since i got advanced dragons dream and advanced grapeshot, and coupled these with a v levelled up igni, i am causing mayhem. like these gigantic mushroom cloud explosions and limbs fly everywhere. it's hilarious.

my problem is i'm too completionist, so if i see question marks i can't stop myself doing them... which means if i sit down for 3 hours, 2 hours of that will be side quests or just treasure hunt, and so i'm getting through main story VERY SLOWLY. I know some people have shot through the main story in 40-50 hours or so as they ignored the side quests etc... so its really down to what you as a person want to do!

but yes finding dandelion was a bit of a bore at points - but then it also had the stage play etc!
enjoying skellige much more now i've moved onto that.

these games would be way better with a silent character-created protagonist rather than reddit wish fulfillment sex having cool guy geralt.

^ a thousand times this; i feel very PUA sleazy picking the obvious sexytimes answer tree

lol true

though i suppose you could argue it's an attempt at reprogramming the users

"hmmmm... should i act like a total asshole to this woman or treat her human? i guess i'll treat her human"
three hours later
"holy shit everyone in this game wants to fuck me... i've got to start treating women human IRL i guess"

"also, i need to get rippling abs, learn magic and splurge on those catseye contacts"

i feel like the gamification of human interaction is the creepiest thing about those kinda dudes

sometimes geralt (and this game) surprise me with wit. not often i guess, and i'm damning with faint praise, but there's a p decent wit bubbling under in this game, relative to other games.

lol at the irish accents on skellige.

the graphics there are amazing.

This is a great game. For me (and not that I play many games) it combines the best aspects of Red Dead Redemption and the better Assassins Creed games.

I've not long reached Skellige, as well. Lovin it. Loving the vastness of the whole game. Like, when you get a new mission you go to the map to see where you have to go and you follow the yellow arrow, and you follow it and follow it and follow it, and it just scrolls for ages and it's like ho-ly fuck. I'm gonna be at something of a loss when I complete it all, tbh. lol.

I got overwhelmed by the size and stopped to play Arkham Knight.

yeah i took a lil time out from playing anything and found it a lot easier to jump back into arkham knight and shadows of mordor (which i still haven't really figured out) for a few quick punchups than heading straight back into the vastness of the witcher. excited too because i just sorted out a projector/screen setup and it's totally indulgent and awesome, this game looks fantastic at 120"

Some intense games of Gwent happening over here.

lambert, lambert, what a prick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reQNMG1sMng

amaziing. that tune really gets the blood up for slaughtering some novigrad street gangs.

FINISHED. got a good ending. what a game!

witcher 3 is good

yes! have to get back into it. so fun to play stoned for hours on a wintery day .

Beat the actual game. Started on the DLC but haven't gotten very far. Total blast though.

i recently started on this too. i had tried the first one at the time and hated it so i mentally wrote the series off since. but i saw and got so many recommendations for 3 that i had to get it in the end and yeah it is exceptional. movement still nearly as clunky as i remember it from 1 tho.

i finished the tutorial area and just started on the next area. it's so huge, and i love that the side quests and stuff are well written and interesting. i haven't really delved into gwent at all. is it the kind of thing that gives advantages or just a bit of fun on the side? should i worry about it now or can i go back to it later?

Worry about it now because you'll need the special cards from certain characters (like the Baron) that will disappear and you'll never catch up with the quality level of cards NPCs have in Skellige or Novigrad.

it's also just fun. it's a p nicely designed game and quick to play a match

don't worry about the vastness, just enjoy the fact that even the smallest side quest is going to be pure quality, and there are hundreds of hours of enjoyment in that thing. I actually think the story of Hearts Of Stone is better than the base game, it really is wonderful....

due to this year of shittiness i've actually kept blood and wine back for as long as possible, first reason being so that i have a guaranteed excellent thing to enjoy in christmas holidays, and second reason being that i'm gonna be fucking sad when i have no more of this to play.

fuck gwent if it doesn't appeal, i never played it even once.

this is the best game.

well i played it once, but after that i never played it again.

must try the expansion packs, though i still haven't finished the original, i'm too addicted to randomly grinding my way around the question marks. there's nothing i love more than a huge bandit camp.

I love how the bandits never learn how dumb it is to attack you, even the last guy is always there confidently shouting abuse at you as you stride menacingly over the severed limbs of all his friends, deflecting crossbow bolts back at him

fuck gwent if it doesn't appeal, i never played it even once.

this is the best game.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Thursday, November 17, 2016 4:40 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cosign all of this

I love how the bandits never learn how dumb it is to attack you, even the last guy is always there confidently shouting abuse at you as you stride menacingly over the severed limbs of all his friends, deflecting crossbow bolts back at him

there's a lovely bandit beach down south somewhere, like about 100 of the fuckers around some boat. sort of like a club tropicana for bandits except instead of drinking in speedos you maim and burn them all with bombs and igni.

it's like south west as far as i recall.

I just finished Blood & Wine, which pretty much gives you a whole new game world to explore, which has the added bonus of being like a fever-dream version of 14th Century Provence

and i'm back.

i played a couple hours last night, bumped up to LVL6, and kept dying during the Bloody Baron mission where you have to keep the torches lit while the Pellar completes his spooky chants. i was getting to the point where i was saying "oh come on! come on!" in annoying little kid voice, out loud, after every loss, so i went to bed. in the cold light of the morning i realized that i probably should have adjusted my Sign skills so that they're more effective against Wraiths, who were just tearing me apart. Also I leveled up and didn't even take the time to pick a new skill or do anything else. Negronis. I had a few and it affected my decisionmaking. I'm sorry The Witcher III.

anyway i had a great time getting back into it after however long it had been since i moved on. this time i anticipate sticking with it a lot longer.

i tried to get into gwent when i re-engaged last night. i don't think it's going to happen. about 5 tutorial screens in i just kind of gave up. an hour later i mustered the will to challenge a shopkeeper to a game. i bet 2 crowns. 5 minutes later, still on the first screen, trying to figure out which faction and leader to go with i forfeited

spectre oil on your sword, and use yrden for the wraiths. that should speed it up!
from what i remember it's almost like a mandatory test that battle, in that it teaches you to look at the bestiary properly and use oils.

everyone mostly playing this on the default difficulty?

difficulty level for these kind of games depends on how much you are going to do side quest/extras. i figure they have to balance them for ppl going m/l straight thru the main quest with only occasional diversions. that means that if you do all of the extra stuff and get to the main quest last, also my approach, then you over-level. it is worth the initial extra challenge to crank the difficulty a level and have the game not be a cakewalk later imo.

been playing on normal and it's been pretty good but starting to get easy - thought about making it more difficult now (i'm at around lvl 10)

yeah, normal is pretty easy -- i think the kotaku guide recommended playing it on one level harder, saying that it got a little too easy in the late stages

phew - thanks jamiesummerz, that did the trick.

i was stuck in an incredibly annoying save situation where i somehow saved it about 2 seconds before the battle triggered, leaving me enough time to pause the game and adjust the loadout, skills, and repair my sword, but not enough time to save the game again afterward. as a result i had to do annoying inventory stuff every single time i died, which was like 15 times. on top of that, last night my ps4 installed a big upgrade to the game, and when i started it up this morning it had a handy mandatory tutorial for the inventory screen which i had to skip through every single time i reloaded.

but it's over. now i'm going to wander around and do some treasure hunting and alchemy and crafting and chill

i was stuck in an incredibly annoying save situation where i somehow saved it about 2 seconds before the battle triggered

similar situation compelled me to post this, the only time i ever got close to throwing the controller, swearing at the television in the middle of the night

I SIGNED UP FOR A GWENT TOURNAMENT NOT FISTS OF FURY AGHHHHHHHHG

― ﷽ (diamonddave85), Saturday, January 23, 2016 10:48 PM (nine months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

an invitation from keira metz

geralt and keira's journey to the elven mage's lair had forged a tight bond between them, the kind harrowing life-or-death experiences forge between soldiers at war or students during exam week. and so when it was all over keira invited geralt to stop by her hut sometimes, in a way that suggested she did mean for an afternoon of tea and crumpets.

i'm assuming this means she wants to play gwent. i'm afraid to go because i've only really played gwent once, and i had no idea what i was doing and didn't even finish.

ah, youth

Complete edition is $25 on Amazon today (I ordered it)

I started this last night and I'm kind of overwhelmed but after months of playing Fallout IV this looks (visually) SO MUCH BETTER